


The One Who

by LookingForOctober



Series: Ellen and Geoffrey and Oliver and Shakespeare [1]
Category: Slings & Arrows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 07:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19079890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForOctober/pseuds/LookingForOctober
Summary: In eight connected drabbles, Ellen and Geoffrey (post-season 1) visit an alternate world in which their history and present selves are not exactly the same.





	1. Chapter 1

Ellen is one of Macbeth's witches, scratchy voiced and hollow cheeked. She hides behind her costume and watches a world both rich and strange. Oliver: alive. Geoffrey: untormented. Ellen: a mother.

A second, alternate world Ellen is redundant, but the part's good. Where is her home but on the stage? 

Before the audience, she forces destiny upon Geoffrey Macbeth. He ignores the audience but regards her with appropriate terror. She feels it too: existential wrongness. 

But she is no Macbeth, burdened with the need to control her destiny. She is the weird, visionary sister. She stays, and strives for nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

"Fear no more the heat of the sun," Geoffrey sang, an early morning offering, his concession to fear. Ellen was gone, but how far gone? "Fear not slander, censure rash."

The sun was golden; Geoffrey followed a new clue, bright as a shard of shattered glass slipper. New paths to travel, new worlds unraveling into insults and mudslinging. His picture of Ellen was getting dirty.

The day declined. Geoffrey sought information -- comfort -- within a bar. Much later, he stumbled out and fell to his knees in lovely muck. "All lovers must..."

Midnight struck. 

"Consign to thee, and come to dust."


	3. Chapter 3

Ellen watches Geoffrey and Ellen. Macbeth and Lady Macduff. A new play by a Canadian playwright about a complicated friendship between younger Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff. Ellen herself can't imagine passing up Lady Macbeth; her doppelganger wanted to have more time for her kid.

Oliver, who suggested this casting, leans forward and murmurs in Ellen's ear. "They're good, aren't they?"

He sounds smug, but Ellen senses dangerous undercurrents. Geoffrey and Ellen, Oliver and Geoffrey. Oliver and Ellen. The forbidden intensity when Geoffrey looks at his wife's friend -- don't forget, he'll kill her one day.

And Oliver whispers to Ellen.


	4. Chapter 4

Geoffrey pushed past Richard into his office.

"Oh, right, you're missing Ellen," Richard said. "But since it's opening night..." 

Geoffrey slammed the door.

Opening night. He was afraid he presided over a farce. He was afraid he'd betrayed everything he cared about. Worse than the travesties Oliver used to put on.

He rooted around until he found that picture of the three of them. Once upon a time... he'd had everything, all on one stage. Passion. Art.

Ellen and Oliver had continued when there was nothing left. He ... was damn well going to make sure there was something left. Now.


	5. Chapter 5

"Next season, Lear, with Goneril and Regan as twins," Oliver says. "Or if Ellen wants smaller parts, what about Prospero for you? Why not a powerful woman?"

He sees a mother when he looks at her. Better than seeing the nurse. But Ellen keeps searching his face to make sure he's really giving her these gifts. Looking for strings, or games.

"You trust me," Oliver says. "Don't you?"

"Why would you lie to me?"

"So, as far as you can see me?"

Ellen sighs. "I was always second best. Never enough on my own."

"That was another country."

He's right.


	6. Chapter 6

Geoffrey was on Ellen's trail, but he found himself. "Shouldn't you be in the extra rehearsal?" Anna asked. "Oliver wanted to..." Now he watched as another Geoffrey performed the banquet scene in Macbeth.

He couldn't stand what he was seeing. "No, no, Macbeth still has a conscience, where's your conscience?" They all stared. "Let me show you."

In the middle, Oliver returned. "Geoffrey." So disappointed.

Two Geoffreys turned, but there was a difference. "What's worth fighting for?" Geoffrey asked, ready to fight for his vision. No one answered so Geoffrey did. "Art."

His double nodded -- at Oliver. "What Ellen needs."


	7. Chapter 7

Ellen runs after him, the unexpected visitor leaving afternoon rehearsal.

"Geoffrey!"

He looks up, the slump of his shoulders rising. She knows him in triumph and defeat; she knows all his moods and mannerisms. And he knows hers. Tiny messages pass back and forth as quickly as thought.

"Are you staying?"

He's the one who was driven mad by betrayal, not the one who remade himself without madness.

But she's the one who became a selfish bitch, not the one who makes sacrifices to introduce her seven year old to the joys of theatre -- and life.

"Any reason I shouldn't?"


	8. Chapter 8

The bridge in this world had been redesigned, but swans still swam beneath.

"I want to play Lady Macbeth," Ellen said, leaning on the railing. "So you'd better get on that."

"Oliver's Macbeth?"

"What? No. I saw you. I want your Macbeth, Geoffrey."

There was a spark of anticipation as their eyes met, shared delight. He held out his hand to her. "Let's go home."

But as they strolled back across the bridge, Ellen glanced back and asked wistfully, "Do you love me like he loves Ellen? Could you?"

More than the plays? Geoffrey thought, before he could stop himself.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts:
> 
> 1\. A mental drain, physical aches. It's time to shed your burdens.
> 
> 2\. "Is there any mud left for the grass after you brought all of that inside?"
> 
> 3\. The scales have tipped too far out of balance. 
> 
> 4\. Write about your character's first ever passion. A first crush, their first dream job, the first person they ever decided they admired. Do they still hold onto it?
> 
> 5\. "Why would you lie to me?"
> 
> 6\. "What is worth fighting for?"
> 
> 7\. An unexpected afternoon visit.
> 
> 8\. http://www.magnoliaplantation.com/gallery_garden/pic/6.jpg
> 
> From [here](https://nc-ooc.dreamwidth.org/56927.html) and [here](https://nc-ooc.dreamwidth.org/59543.html).


End file.
